sion. and the interesting articles lately published in the Philhellenic Review, in London, have done much to remove from the English-speaking public this false impresGreece is assuming every month a more prominent place in the consideration of those who are troubled by the Eastern Question. And this awakened interest in Greece will lend interest, it is hoped, to an article which, omitting all attempts at detailed description of her wonderful ruins, and her museums so rich in statuary of the best period of art, untouched by the restorer's chisel, shall simply record some of the impressions of a recent stay of two months at Athens. The traveller approaching Athens from the east changes steamers at Syra, in the heart of the Cyclades, and after a night voyage finds himself coasting Ægina at dawn, and at sunrise anchored in the Piræus, the port of Athens. The harbor presents a busy, thriving aspect. At the close of the revolution in 1830, there were but half a dozen fishermen's huts where now stands a rapidly growing town of twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants. The idea of entering Athens by railroad is repellent to any lover of her past. Who would be carried by steam into the presence of that altar-rock to which lovers of the beautiful in all ages have looked for inspiration? Who would lose the delight of the first long look as the Acropolis rises into sight above the roofs of Piræus, or make shorter the keen pleasure of each new identification of hill and plain and stream and ruins before you with the strangely familiar yet unreal image you have formed from maps and books? We drove slowly up the carriage road, which follows the line of the northern long wall. The railroad (the only passenger line in Greece) follows the line of the south or "middle long wall," thirty rods to the right. In classic times, thronging crowds of laborers, merchants, and travellers filled the space between the rows of closely crowded dwellings which on either side lined these old walls. Now there are not half a dozen houses between Athens and Piræus. The old substructions of the long walls of solid masonry twelve feet thick are still to be seen in many places, and have been used as the bed of the carriage road and the railway. Half way to Athens we halt at a little KING GEORGE. way-side cabaret to water the horses. | The supply of water which bubbles from a fountain here is brought in pipes underground beneath the bed of the Ilissus (always dry in summer now) from the famous fountain of Callirrhoë, close under the substructions of the Temple of Zeus Olympias. The sign of the little hostelry was two rival chieftains in ancient armor, lance and shield in hand, painted life-size in most startling colors. Over one was inscribed in Greek capitals AXIAAEYE (Achilleus). Driving east up Hermes Street, the main thoroughfare of the city, we pass the Temple of Theseus, best preserved of Grecian temples, at a little distance on our right; and at the corner of Eolus Street, which crosses Hermes at right angles, we catch a glimpse of the old octagonal Tower of the Winds to the south, close under the northern slope of the Acropolis. The ruins on that most won derful rock draw your eyes irresistibly to themselves; but the Greek Church and the Middle Ages claim your attention as the street divides, passing on either side the little Byzantine church which fills the roadway. Then through a street like the modern parts of Paris, the sharp gray cone of Lycabettus towering before you on the left, close over the city, you drive on toward the park and the royal palace, which close the vista. Our hotel, the Angleterre, faced the palace, a broad park intervening. It was St. George's Day, and the custom of the Greek Church keeps the birthday festival not on the anniversary of one's birth, but on the saint's day of the patron saint whose name was given the child when christened. So on St. George's Day were to be observed the ceremonies appropriate to the birthday festival of 'George, King of the Greeks." The city was astir. The crowd wore, for the most part, the dress and the quick, nerv Here ous aspect of a New York crowd. and there you saw the Albanian costume, adopted by the Greeks as the national dress for lack of any other more distinctively their own. Blue, close-fitting breeches; white or blue stockings and gaiters; low shoes of red leather with pointed, tasselled, upturned toes, and no heels; a short black jacket, sometimes blue, cut away, and richly embroidered, worn over a red waistcoat, and a white, embroidered shirt with open sleeves; colored garters at the knee, and a red girdle supporting an immense leathern pouch, from which protrude pistols and a knife or two; on the head a pointed red flannel cap, like a prolonged Turkish fez, falling over upon the side, and ending in a silk tassel. The most remarkable feature of the costume remains to be described. From thirty to sixty yards of white linen about thirty inches wide are gathered in a very thickly pleated skirt, which is starched, and worn over the breeches. | place was assigned to the English MinisThis is the fustanella; and where this hab- ter. English is the court language at it is kept scrupulously clean (which is sel- Athens. Indeed, King George's close redom the case with the class of citizens lationship with the Princess of Waleswho most affect it), it is strikingly pictur- she is his sister-has given to his reign esque. The profusion of skirt necessarily something of the character of an English gives to its wearer, in Western eyes, a cer- protectorate. For this reason, the Greeks tain feminine air, which no amount of took all the more to heart the action of bushy beard, no fierceness of demeanor, Lord Beaconsfield-his "nasty trick," no profusely displayed fire-arms, can quite counteract. Yet as the National Corps came marching down the square, thus uniformed, their brawny limbs and determined faces, and the gleaming colors of their dress, gave them an air not unlike that of the Scotch Highlanders. In Megara and Eleusis, as in many other parts of the interior, the inhabitants, especially the women, adhere invariably to their characteristic and high-colored local costumes, many of which are most picturesque in color and in detail. Several of the women in the crowd before us, and a few of the ladies in the Greek ministers' carriages, wore the national red cap; and several others, who were dressed in Parisian style, had retained the very pretty Thessalian head-dress -a little golden crown or tiara supporting a light veil thrown back from the face. A GREEK BRIGAND. As the crowd beneath us grew denser, uniformed policemen kept clear a way for the procession. Small, dark-eyed boys, with the preternaturally intelligent look that marks the Athenian boy, sold to the crowd odes and ballads in honor of the day, written in Greek that would have seemed hardly strange to the eyes of a contemporary of Plato, or to St. Paul-in bidding Greece refrain when she himself, at Athens. A squad of cavalry first came down the broad drive from the palace. Except the uniformly fine-looking officers, who spend extravagant sums for horses of showy action, they were very poorly mounted; but they sat their sorry beasts right well. they called it, with a broad pronunciation of the Englishman's opprobrious epithet might have wrested from Turkey by force of arms, during the war with Russia, concessions of territory which all the world feels should be hers. But Beaconsfield assured Greece that she "had a future," and bade her trust it, and refrain from war. When peace was restored, in his secret Fifty carriages followed, every nation and public negotiations he utterly ignored represented at Athens sending its diplo- the claims of Greece. Indignation at this matic servants to congratulate the king, treatment ran high at Athens a year ago. and to attend him on his progress to a The crowd in general was less demonstraspecial birthday service in the metropoli- tive than an American or an English tan cathedral. A little cheer greeted the crowd on a like occasion; but the greetappearance of each national representa- ings to the king were said to be less entive, except in case of the Turks, whose thusiastic than they would have been had red fezes were met with a significant si- not the presence of the Duke of Conlence. The Duke of Connaught, then at naught and the English officers with him Athens with his bride, occupied a seat in reminded the Athenians afresh of their the king's own carriage, and a prominent | keen disappointment at England's failure to maintain their cause against the Turk. During my stay at Athens, the appearance in the street of the white pith helmet so commonly associated with Englishmen in the East called out expressions of aversion from passers-by, which were very unpleasant. The name of American, however, insures one who is properly introduced the kindest attentions in Athens. American aid and sympathy during their revolution have always been held in grateful remembrance; and the labors at Athens of American missionaries in churches and in schools, and the character of the American representatives at Athens, have confirmed this kindly feeling. The success of Greek scholars who have made a home for themselves in America, too, is keenly enjoyed by their country Athens numbers not far from 70,000 inhabitants. Its principal streets are paved, and lighted by gas. Its architecture, in the better parts of the city, and in the common buildings designed for business purposes and dwellings, is not unlike the modern part of any European town. In 1832, when Dr. Hill, the venerable American missionary, who still resides at Athens, took up his abode there, he was obliged to live for some months in a ruined tower, as there was literally not a house standing in Athens. The city is entirely of modern growth. It lies almost exclusively to the north and east of the Acropolis. The old city lay chiefly to the south and west of this hill, and in Roman times extended northward and eastward. Stone and brick are the building materials. There is no supply of wood for building purposes. Even roots and fagots for fuel are fabulously dear. In the poorer quarters of the city, and especially close under the Acropolis, there are rows of stone hovels, many of them but one story high, dark, noisome, and dirty. These huts are constantly encroaching upon the vacant land on the slopes of the rocky citadel. This land is the property of the government, and no one has a right to build upon it. But there is at Athens | in the open air, and prepare their frugal either a law or a prescriptive right which meal-as you see how pathetically these prevents the removal or destruction of a little houses seem to cling like suppliants home once built and occupied. Taking about the knees of the marble-crowned, advantage of this, a couple newly married world-famous Rock of Athens-it takes litnotify their friends, material is quietly got | tle fancy to imagine that these homes of together, and on the appointed night, as silently as may be, the simple house is erected, between dark and dawn, the hands of scores of friends making light work; and, with such household goods as they can boast, the young householders take possession at once. Then from the sacred home altar they safely answer the questions of the officers of the law, should any notice be taken of their trespass. As you gaze down upon these simple homes from the Acropolis in the earliest dawn of a summer morning, and see the inmates, roused from a night's rest (often passed beneath the open sky, on the flat roof or beside the humble door), light a little fire the poor have crept for protection beneath the mighty shadow of the stronghold of liberty in Athens's glorious past. Probably the dwellings of the people, in the days when her grandest temples rose, were little more than shelter from sun and rain-far better represented by these poorer dwellings than by the Parisian streets which make up so large a part of Athens now. The outer walls of the finer houses are built of undressed stone, which is plastered over, and often painted. Light yellows and blues and pinks are sometimes chosen for this purpose, but white is the prevailing color. The roofs are for the most part flat. Along their |